Estimated 1 in 4 U.S. Hackers Working for the Man

Posted on Jun 7, 2011

One year after suspected WikiLeaker Pfc. Bradley Manning was outed to the FBI by his confidant, Adrian Lamo, the hacking community is steeped in tension and mistrust, with the publisher of a popular trade journal estimating that a quarter of all U.S. hackers are recruited informers for the federal government. —ARK

From The Guardian:

The underground world of computer hackers has been so thoroughly infiltrated in the US by the FBI and secret service that it is now riddled with paranoia and mistrust, with an estimated one in four hackers secretly informing on their peers, a Guardian investigation has established.

Cyber policing units have had such success in forcing online criminals to co-operate with their investigations through the threat of long prison sentences that they have managed to create an army of informants deep inside the hacking community.

... So ubiquitous has the FBI informant network become that Eric Corley, who publishes the hacker quarterly, 2600, has estimated that 25% of hackers in the US may have been recruited by the federal authorities to be their eyes and ears. “Owing to the harsh penalties involved and the relative inexperience with the law that many hackers have, they are rather susceptible to intimidation,” Corley told the Guardian.